Here we look at email marketing (autoresponder) and how it can make a massive shift in new sales when done properly in your business.
Your autoresponder and what it means.
Wikipedia I usually take a look at a formal view before I expand on what I believe is true.
An autoresponder is set up to send out messages overtime to capture an audience and provide an understanding of you and your business.
It may be at an inbound enquiry or as outbound marketing to authorised recipients.
It is a selling device by stealth
The internet has the ability to automate your marketing procedures, saving you time and making you money. Once set up this can be used many times with only results monitoring required.
Inbound marketing
Inbound marketing.
On your social media, web page or other marketing, you place a capture form where customers give you an email address in return for something specific. It could be an eBook, a white paper, a brochure or anything that will make them part with their email address and even phone number.
The contact form goes straight to the carrier that completes the request.
Outbound emails automated
Outbound Emails automated.
If you have enquiries for a specific product or a buyers list that have approached you for a product you can put them in a special list.
People that buy gym gear could be sold nutrients, equipment, gym feed, deodorants or anything related to the original product.
Above all is to relate the products top the activity
Special occasion marketing
For example, there is a great benefit in getting a birthday wish from a business. It is a great bonding strategy that can be easily set up.
Why stop there, anniversaries, dogs, birthday and sort of special occasions can be automated.
No spamming is ever allowed.
A quick bit of housekeeping here, you are not allowed under all the laws of all the counties to send random messages to any list of addresses not obtained in the course of business with you. Never, never.
I don't want to provide all the specifics because each country is different but remember spamming is bad.
You are on an email list with me.
As small business owners, we all need the latest in business ideas and ways to increase sales and this is my passion. So I promote some of the things I know sharing the knowledge freely along the way.
My desire is to help you in someway with some ideas that you may take on. Be it Instagram, Youtube, newsletters you will learn something new.
How do you create automated messaging?
The easy bit is selecting a carrier like Constant Contact, Aweber or Mail Chimp or any number of carriers. Some good, bad, difficult, strict all sorts of hurdles.
However, changing is easy.
There is a general pattern to any programmed messages that can help increase the acceptance of your intended offer.
Your first email is generally to introduce yourself and why you are emailing them.
Explain what you stand for and what is to come in a few days and then build in an interest factor.
The next email is your engagement with them, you want them to like what you offer and maybe take a trial or test or show interest by clicking links on a particular subject.
I would offer testimonials and a compelling reason to join with you in a product pursuit.
Next is a pretty full-on offer, giving them the pitch to provide valid reasons to buy from you and have the signup link or buy now button.
Finally, a last-ditch discount, one time offer, never to be repeated on offer.
In fact, you can do up to 15 emails with most carriers in any one program.
Just how you do it really depends on your business, your customers, what you are selling and how often you send out emails.
My rule is that more is better, more emails over time. Don't be afraid of annoying your customers, your unsubscribe rate will give you the answer.
Choose your audience
Within your customer list, you will have all sorts of individuals from all sorts of ways of life so they need to be filtered into groups.
You also have those that have bought before and shown an interest in different ideas.
It's no good selling Ladies wear to working blokes.
Wood tools to grandmothers, retirement plan to teenagers. You need to sort your list.
Who do you market to explained
Firstly I market it to small businesses of all sorts. I pick niches like wood turners and email them from my list.
I might also market to tree cutters, forest management and any related industry. Each is different but all are the same.
Importantly, my first email is always an introduction. I quickly get a feel for the response and who I can target.
In addition, my next email is pretty general and then I can segregate it depending on what actions they take. From there they are placed in an automated series.
Any that purchase can be stripped out and added to a purchased list targeting another product.
Stay cheap with CRM
You can use expensive CRM plans to help with this or if you are small do it manually.
Finally, any that are still with you will go into your newsletter where they will stay until the end of time.
I often have customers come to me after a long period of up to 12 months and greater saying you sent me an email about such and such, what can we do.
Often you have no idea who reads what you write.
I am doing a series on business marketing products at the moment. In fact, this is part of a series of nearly a dozen headings that any small business should understand.
I was with a customer recently about a separate matter and she said to me, as I was leaving, gee I am enjoying the email series at the moment.
In fact, everyone has received similar results in opening and click rates. This is very satisfying to the author because I know I am on a good track.
I am not selling any products in this series, It is designed to set up a Know like and trust situation so when we call them most of our job is done.
Go to the Know line
The decision time on whether to open an email is often just part of a second. Hit read delete or stay depends on two things.
The first really important issue is if they know you. If you are unknown, you are spam. gone in a nanosecond
If you get a lot of emails you will notice the use of famous names or common names that look familiar as they try to get your attention. Why do they do this? because it works
Just in the last few days, I have had :
Tucker Kit
Peter Redpath
Maria Bell
Now, these are all Indian web builders and SEO sites so I presume not the real family name.
Tucker got me in, I had to look and said he laughing to himself.
That is why the introduction email. This is the start of the knowledge process where people will look at your email.
The attention line
This is critically important because it takes up the second half of the Nanosecond available.
Here are some of the essential elements contained in your subject line.
- A direct benefit
- Curiosity
- Scarcity
- News
- Social Proof
- A story
- Humanity
I followed Ryan Deiss on a lot of email marketing and his chosen best subject lines were: - Breaking news
- Facebook is dead
- Everybody is waiting for you
- Kindle Bestseller in 4 days
- Watch live? From anywhere?
- I feel kinda sorry for you
- How to scale your business
- Good news for people that love bad news
- Can't make the trip
As you can see each of these incorporates an element in the first list so it will draw the readers in.
When making your attention line, make sure one of the above elements is included.
This gets the readers Interest and takes them to the reading page.
You are nearly Home
The closing element
You will never know when a customer is going to buy your product. In the first email, the last or any in between.
Therefore you always need a buy button on the page. It need not be in your face but it should be visible for those wanting to take action. I usually have a free trial offer as my base button but it can be anything you want. It should be visible but not for the purpose of the mail.
Your objective is to sell.
Make no bones about it, you are not in the entertainment business. You are like the Stealth Bomber. You would fly in a sale to these guys without them realising where you came from.
In conclusion, I wish you the best of luck with this and of course, I do recommend Constant Contact because it is easy to use, anyone can do it and they have a range of options.
One is a sign-in page that takes people straight to your autoresponder, how good is that?
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Email Marketing (autoresponder) by Peter Hanley
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